


After the Storm

by coalitiongirl_ficlets (coalitiongirl)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 5a, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 13:51:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6660823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl_ficlets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes two days before Emma says again, voice rough and uncertain, “I’m sorry.” She’s done so much damage, hurt everyone in the process and perhaps Henry most of all, and she’d been a menace toying with Regina for weeks. </p><p>“I know,” Regina says. There’s nothing more to say with their history. And Emma breathes out a sigh of relief like it means so much more than it sounds like. (They still don’t talk about the other thing, not when they both fall asleep keeping watch and wake up entwined. Not when they find water and Regina’s nearly drowned by a massive sea beast and Emma is screaming furiously between sobs as she wards it off. Not when Regina makes it back onto shore and they’re still holding hands for too long, staring into each other’s eyes.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> this was a twitter fic i don't really love (mostly bc i've told this story a thousand times and this is bare bones) but hey, at least it isn't the dark swan arc we actually got, right~
> 
> also written pre-s5, so very AU in its handling of Dark Swan etc.

This story begins with a true love’s kiss. _Well_. It actually begins with Regina rushing to Emma at full speed, their prior conflict forgotten as the end of the world that Emma had unleashed bears down on them, and it begins with Emma meeting Regina’s eyes and Regina taking the Dark One into her arms, shielding her from the magic erupting from a portal.

Emma murmurs something that might be “I’m sorry,” and Regina shielding her becomes a lot more like Regina hugging her, and there’s an instinctive kiss brushed to the top of Emma’s head and everything changes.

The light explodes from them in a burst of color and the portal around them no longer seems to be raining hell down upon them and Emma stares up at Regina and Regina stares back at her and Emma’s changing now, too. The darkness within her erupts into the portal and they’re caught in a maelstrom and pulled in with it.

And _that's_  how Dark Swan ends. 

* * *

We return to Emma and Regina shortly after, traipsing through a world that isn’t theirs, snarking and muttering and darting glances at each other as they move through the underbrush.

They find a cave to hide in that first night. “Do you think this is, like, the Lion King?” Emma murmurs. “Are we going to wake up and someone’s going to be singing Hakuna Matata while hyenas maul our faces?”

“I’ll keep watch,” is all Regina says. 

They don’t talk about the other thing. They don’t talk about how Emma's face is clear and her eyebrows are back and she no longer walks like she’s mentally restraining herself from murder. 

Emma wakes up three hours later and insists that she’ll take the rest of the night. Regina lies down and breathes evenly and pretends she doesn’t notice when Emma’s fingers run through her hair and caress the curve of her jaw.

* * *

In the morning, there are no lions or wolves or anyone singing Disney tunes but there are grey skies that seem to move with them as though they’re seeking something out that they can’t touch within the two women. “It’s the Dark One,” Emma says. “It still wants us." 

"How do you know?” Regina asks.

Emma says, “I know,” and she stares up at it like she might want it back, too. Regina doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t know why the magic won’t come for her, as it did before. (She knows. They know what it is they have that wards off the Dark One. They don’t talk about it.)

It takes two days before Emma says again, voice rough and uncertain, “I’m sorry.” She’s done so much damage, hurt everyone in the process and perhaps Henry most of all, and she’d been a menace toying with Regina for weeks. 

“I know,” Regina says. There’s nothing more to say with their history. And Emma breathes out a sigh of relief like it means so much more than it sounds like. (They still don’t talk about the other thing, not when they both fall asleep keeping watch and wake up entwined. Not when they find water and Regina’s nearly drowned by a massive sea beast and Emma is screaming furiously between sobs as she wards it off. Not when Regina makes it back onto shore and they’re still holding hands for too long, staring into each other’s eyes.) 

Instead they’re snippy, uncertain, alternating between snapping at each other and apologizing, and at night now they huddle together and talk about Henry or Storybrooke or anything but Regina’s lips at the top of Emma’s head, white light exploding from the contact into a burst of the most powerful magic of all.

* * *

They make it home. Rumple and Belle help with some kind of portal and Henry is waiting for them, laughing and throwing his arms around them as Snow follows suit, and then both of them are bowled over by…two others.

Two they hadn’t thought of since the moment they’d gone through that portal. And Hook is shoving past Snow to wrap his arms around Emma and Robin is squeezing Regina so tightly that she can’t breathe, and the women catch each other’s eyes and hold, still awkward and still uncertain. 

Emma breaks free from Hook and watches Regina limp in Robin’s arms, and she brushes her fingers along Regina’s elbow and murmurs, “Welcome back.”

“You too,” Regina says in a scratchy voice, and Emma doesn’t know why she wants to hide somewhere and weep.

* * *

Snow marvels at this world that had freed Emma of the Dark One and Emma nods and smiles. Hook says, “I'm impressed you and the queen managed a week alone together without any deaths,” and laughs like it’s all a joke. Like everything that had happened is a joke and now it’s time to go back to normal.

And they try. They really, really do. They do weekly meetings as mayor and sheriff and they do dinners with Henry and they’re very, very cordial. Whatever friendship they’d had before Emma’s sacrifice is gone, replaced with eyes that shift downward when the other sees her staring, with touches that linger and with magic that they use together that makes them breathless and unstoppable and exhilarated until the moment it dies again.

* * *

Emma’s the first to break, slipping away from her new house in the dead of night and running through the streets of Storybrooke until she’s standing in front of Regina’s door, barefoot and in pajamas and shaking a little as she knocks on the door. 

Robin opens it. “Emma,” he says, confused. 

Emma shifts from bare foot to bare foot and says, “Sorry, I’ll just…I’m gonna just go." 

Robin calls her name and Emma takes off into the night, running off to where the portal had first opened. It’s out by the sand near where Henry’s old castle used to be, and Emma huddles against broken driftwood and misses a stupid world with grey skies and sea monsters and Regina’s embrace.

She hears Regina come silently to her, hears her sit down on the driftwood and sees the thin fabric of satin pajamas. Regina doesn’t say a word and Emma doesn’t dare speak, either, so they sit together and watch the water in silence.

"I brought you a sweater,” Regina says finally, draping it over Emma’s thin, bare shoulders.

Emma says, “You knew I was out here.”

“Of course I knew,” Regina whispers. And this isn’t only the place where the portal opened, it’s the place where they’d shared a… (They don’t talk about it.)

* * *

They go back to their homes that night. They go back to the thoughts they can’t admit to and the stares and they go back to the safety that two men represent. They go back to lies and fear, fear, fear the truth. 

At night, one or the other or both sit silently on rotting driftwood and stare out into the ocean.

Robin talks about marriage. Hook talks about some kind of adventure on his ship away from Storybrooke. "I said no,“ Emma says, digging her bare feet into the sand. "Have to be your maid of honor at the wedding, huh?”

“I said no, too,” Regina says, and Emma looks up at her in surprise. Regina refuses to tear her eyes from the sea.

“Well,” Emma says. “Okay then.”

And when Regina glances at her she sees that she’s smiling. 

Regina smiles, too, a tiny shard of light gleaming in her heart like hope. 

They go home when they can’t hide from sunrise anymore.

* * *

Regina kisses Emma first, which comes both as a surprise and not as one at all. 

They aren’t on the sand this time. They’re doing their weekly mayoral meeting and they’re talking as casually as they can manage and Regina stands up to walk her out and– there’s something about the light on her face and the fact that Emma is free again and so unbelievably _Emma_  and– 

Regina leans forward and Emma buries herself in Regina’s arms as though she’s been waiting for another hug since the moment they’d gone through that portal. And Regina kisses the top of her head in the same way as last time, but this time Emma raises her face to watch Regina with aching need in her eyes.

Regina kisses her forehead, kisses her eyelids closed and the tip of her nose and the corner of her mouth and Emma brushes her nose against Regina’s and lets the next kiss land on her lips. And again, chaste and careful. 

And suddenly Emma’s spinning them around and Regina’s backed up against the door and there’s more kissing, furious and endless and as though they’re both starving, and then there’s Regina’s skirt hoisted up and Emma's pants yanked down and hands and fingers everywhere and they’re both sobbing, both so caught up in desperation that they can’t remember how to breathe in any way but with wracked, needy gasps. And they climb and fall together, again and again and again, foreheads pressed together and fingers scrabbling together at the end like they can’t bear to let go. 

“Yeah?” Emma whispers after, and her eyes are shining and she’s glowing with the energy of promises of a future where they’re _easy_ in all the ways they’ve never been before. 

“Yes,” Regina murmurs, and she kisses Emma again, both of them still with tears spilling down their cheeks and relief so bright within them that they’re like sunshine in the rain.


End file.
